Mark Antony : a comparative study in sub-hypnotic control, dominance or ascendency, and some of its causal factors / by J. Foster Palmer.

  • Palmer, J. Foster (James Foster)
Date:
[1913]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mark Antony : a comparative study in sub-hypnotic control, dominance or ascendency, and some of its causal factors / by J. Foster Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    5/10 (page 317)
    “ an aspiration is a joy for ever. It is in virtue of his own desiies and curiosities that any man continues to exist with even patience. *• To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is labour.” This success, for the present, Antonio lacked. His ventures had all been successful, and he had the greatest confidence that they would continue to be so. Too great confidence, in fact; for he had begun to cease to take any interest in life. The terrible demon of “ ennui ” had taken hold upon him, and this was certainly one of the factors which led to his state of mental depression. Had Antonio’s mind been set on something nobler than the mere acquisition of wealth, this factor, at least, would have been wanting. If his prime object in life had been to work out some difficult problem in ethics or science, or to choose suitable careers for a large family of sons, ennui would have found no place in the active brain, “ and melancholy ” would not have “ marked him for its own.’ A higher aspiration, a less attainable ambition, would have hindered its growth. Doubtless, as already observed, there were physical causes as well, but these mental and physical deviations from the normal state act and re-act on one another, and so, to use a somewhat hackneyed pathological phrase, “ the vicious circle is maintained.” No one, at this period, i.e., the first act of the play, could speak of Antonio as insane. He is in a state of undue depression, of simple, perhaps physiological, melancholy, but not of insanity. He has no delusions, no obsessions, and, apparently, no loss of object consciousness. A severe shock, a sudden necessity for intense active brain-work, would, even now, counteract the evil mental influences, and restore the cerebral blood-current to its normal channels. In due course the shock came, and the result followed. On the other hand, if the mental and physical causes which had brought about this condition had been allowed to continue their influence undisturbed, it is quite conceivable that the “ mental weariness ” referred to in the second line of the play might have evolved, in time, a tendency to suicide. For, after all, there is no absolute line of demarcation between sanity and insanity, and much ingenuity has been expended in the discovery of a scientific barrier which is non-existent. The condition so often seen of acquired chronic melancholy, accompanied by pessimistic views of human nature, is, in many, if not most, cases, the result of a life of dissipation. The nerve centres of potential happiness* are exhausted by selfish indulgence, and, the * This, of course, is a figure of speech. There are no “nerve centres of potential happiness” in a literal sense. Happiness is, presumably, the result of a moderate and healthy activity of the nerve cells. When the energy latent in the nerve centres is exhausted by excessive action, the “animal spirits” become sluggish in their action, and depression naturally follows. U 2